Oz PM enjoys watching Boxing Day Test and tea with Indian envoy

Melbourne, Dec.27 (ANI): Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd today dropped in at the Melbourne Cricket Ground to watch the second day’s play between Australia and India, and to have tea with the Indian High Commissioner Sujatha Singh. He told an Australian Radio interviewer that “I was just having a cup of tea before with the Indian high commissioner about this (cricket) being so much the lifeblood of the Australia-India relationship. “If we can somehow build on the bonds that exist out of this game and take it to the next level that would be a lot better than the reverse.” Interacting with the media on the sidelines of his visit, Rudd said that the game is unique for cementing ties between countries and their peoples, and admitted that while loved cricket, he was as hopeless at actually playing the game as his predecessor, John Howard. Rudd said that in his younger days he was an occasional wicketkeeper and had played for the Australian embassy team in Beijing when he was posted there. Earlier, Rudd told the Nine Network he had seen his first Test match during the 1974-75 season and vividly recalled the performance of pace bowlers Jeff Thomson and Dennis Lillee. “I’d just finished high school and I remember jumping the train from Nambour down to Brisbane to the Gabba. It was the first Test match I’d ever been to, I think I was 17. Watching the whole day, Thomson and Lillee, was just riveting as a kid.” The second day of the five-day Boxing Day Test being played at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) emphatically emphasised the championship status of the Australian cricket team, which clinically worked at bundling out India for a paltry 196, and then tightening the screws by taking their lead of 147 to 179 with a 32-run opening partnership in the second innings. With the exception of Sachin Tendulkar, who made a master-class 62 before under-edging a Stuart Clark ball into his stumps, and a dogged 43 by the in-form Saurav Ganguly, all the other Indian batsmen failed to deal with the deliveries pitched at them by three Australian speedsters and left-arm Chinaman bowler Brad Hogg. (ANI)